Daily Dialogue — February 4, 2020

Marty: I got a job for you.
Private Detective Visser: Uh, well, if the pay’s right, and it’s legal, I’ll do it.
Marty: It’s not strictly legal.
Private Detective Visser: [thinks for a second] Well, if the pay’s right, I’ll do it.

— Blood Simple. (1984), written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Private Eye.

Trivia: The title is based on a phrase from the Dashiell Hammett novel ‘Red Harvest’, in which “blood simple” is a term coined to describe the addled, fearful mindset people are in after a prolonged immersion in violent situations. Blood Simple writers Joel Coen and Ethan Coen later made Miller’s Crossing (1990) which is loosely based on that novel.

Dialogue On Dialogue: The private investigator Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) has great dialogue throughout the movie.